After waking to such alarm, of course I couldn't fall back to sleep. That famous jet lag everyone warned me about was taking its toll. My body didn't know what time it was and my stomach, angry at being forgotten, growled and churned. I rose, went to the door and peered out. I could see a faint light in the hallway and over the stairway. The door creaked as I opened it farther. Then I practically tiptoed out and down the stairs, each step on the staircase betraying me with a groan as I descended. I didn't want to disturb anyone, but I needed to eat something, some milk, a piece of bread, anything.
On my way down the hallway toward the kitchen, I saw there was light coming from the parlor. When I reached the doorway, I paused and gazed in to see Grandpa Samuel slouched in an easy chair, his hands on his stomach, his mouth open as he slept. On the table beside him was a decanter of brandy and a partly filled goblet. I continued on to the kitchen where I made myself a turkey sandwich, which I ate quickly, feeling like a thief.
Suddenly, I heard a gasp and looked to the kitchen doorway to see Grandpa Samuel standing there looking as if all the blood had drained from his face.
"My God," he said, stumbling forward and stopping, his eyes wide. "Haille?"
"No, Grandpa. It's Melody," I said. "I'm sorry I woke you but--"
"Melody?" He scrubbed his face hard with his palms and then looked at me again, a dazed look in his eyes. "Melody?"
"Yes, Grandpa. I was hungry. I fell asleep and missed dinner and--"
"Oh. Oh, yes, Olivia told me. She had Loretta look in on you." He shook his head. "For a moment there .. . your mother used to come home late like this and go to the kitchen to gobble something. Lots of times she'd had too much to drink," he added in a whisper, "but I wouldn't tell Olivia. I'd make sure she got some food in her and then I'd send her up to bed.
"Well now," he continued, still sounding a bit confused, "well, I guess it's late. I should go up. Olivia's probably given up on me again." He looked at me askance. It was as if he still didn't trust me, trust reality. "I didn't hear you come in, Haille," he said after a long moment. He shook his head. "I'd better go to sleep. I'll lock the front door again. Olivia locked it when you didn't come home on time and said to let you sleep in the streets, but as usual, I unlocked it when she went upstairs."
"What? Grandpa . . . it's me, Melody," I said softly, puzzled by his behavior. Maybe he was sleepwalking. And talking.
He smiled.
"Let it be another one of our little secrets, okay? Now don't you oversleep tomorrow morning," he warned, waving his right forefinger at me. Then he smiled. "Good night."
He turned, and slowly made his way toward the stairs, looking more like an old man than ever, as he shuffled away. I cleaned my dishes and wiped up the tab
le, careful to erase all traces of my midnight snack. When I got to the stairway, however, Grandpa Samuel was just pulling himself up the final steps and groaning as he made his way to his and Grandma Olivia's bedroom.
I went up to my room quickly and closed the door. Then I got undressed, put on one of the new nightgowns that were in the dresser drawer and crawled into bed. Finally my stomach was settled, but now my mind raced as I tried to figure out Grandpa Samuel's strange behavior. I didn't look that much like my mother, did I? I wondered. And after I had told him who I was and he seemed to remember, why did he forget again and talk to me as if I were Haille, as if he was living twenty years in the past?
"There, you see. It's Melody, our
granddaughter. Melody, not Haille," Grandma Olivia insisted when I entered the dinning room to have breakfast the next morning. I was still lounging in bed when I heard the two of them walk by my room earlier that morning, and I scrambled to shower and dress as quickly as I could. Grandpa Samuel gazed up from his bowl of oatmeal and nodded, smiling at me as I took my seat at the table.
He was dressed in a sports jacket and wore a tie, but he had done a poor job shaving his face. There were patches of gray stubble on his chin and along his jaw.
"He was raving last night," Grandma Olivia continued, "talking stupidity again, telling me Haille was back."
"Good morning, Grandpa Samuel," I said, concerned that he'd give away my early morning wandering. His eyes looked glassy, distant, however. I gazed questioningly at Grandma Olivia.
"He's slipping away," she muttered, "into his dotage."
"What's that, Olivia?" he asked. "What about the cottage?"
"I didn't say anything about any cottage, you fool," she snapped. "I want you to see the doctor about that hearing aid today. I told Raymond to take you over there."
"Oh. Fine, fine. I've got time today," he said and she laughed.
"You hear that? He can find the time in his busy schedule today."
I gazed at him. He was so different and it had happened so quickly, I thought. I turned again to Grandma Olivia, who saw the confusion in my face.
"He's been like this ever since Jacob's death," she explained. "It hit him like a sledgehammer and aged him years in minutes."
Grandpa Samuel blew on his spoonful of oatmeal and gazed absently ahead, looking through me.
"Oh, how sad," I said.
"As is much of life," Grandma Olivia instructed. "That's why it's important to learn how to deal with unpleasantness, how to accept what you can't change and move on to what you can. Don't ever waste your time again on lost causes. Time is too precious. You're young now, so you think you'll be young forever, but one day you'll wake up and find yourself unable to count the wrinkles and the gray hairs and you'll have aches and pains where you never had them before."